Rep. Rick Larsen, WA-02, issued the following statement today regarding news reports that the Obama administration is collecting vast amounts of telephone and web data, including data on American citizens.

“The FISA Court’s job is to watch the watchers. But if recent reports are true, they are in fact rubberstamping the watchers. These programs need to be subject to aggressive scrutiny and oversight, and if they’re not, Congress needs to fix them.

“The FISA Court exists to provide judicial oversight of law enforcement when they are using enhanced surveillance tools. These tools are legitimate when used in targeted and limited investigations of foreign nationals to protect Americans. The administration is apparently using the FISA Court inappropriately to gather information on Americans in broad and continuing dragnet operations. This is not the kind of behavior that Congress expected when we voted to give intelligence agencies these expanded authorities. It is becoming clear that the intelligence community and the FISA Court have become either lazy or arrogant with their use of these powers.

“The Obama administration is apparently telling Americans “just trust us.” That’s the same thing we heard from the Bush administration. The President is wrong to imply that his administration is keeping all of Congress fully informed about these programs. That isn’t true of any program the federal government operates. He is trying to deflect responsibility. At this point, it is hard to remember if Barack Obama’s middle initial is H or W.”